A Theoretical Investigation of He I Line Profiles for the Spectroscopic Analysis of DB White Dwarfs

TL;DR

This paper investigates He I line profiles for DB white dwarf spectroscopy, comparing traditional semi-analytical models with new computer-simulated Stark-broadened profiles, and analyzes SDSS data.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison between existing semi-analytical and newly computed Stark profiles for He I lines in DB white dwarfs.

Findings

Comparison shows differences between semi-analytical and simulated profiles.

Analysis of SDSS DB white dwarfs reveals impact of line profile choice.

3D hydrodynamical corrections influence spectroscopic parameters.

Abstract

We present a comprehensive investigation of He I line profile calculations used in the spectroscopic analyses of DB white dwarfs. Our study includes an in-depth photometric and spectroscopic analysis of all DB white dwarfs in the Data Release 17 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, examining the effects of frequency sampling, Doppler broadening, line dissolution, broadening by neutral particles, and 3D hydrodynamical corrections on our results. More importantly, we compare the outcomes obtained from the semi-analytical He I Stark profiles commonly used in DB white dwarf spectroscopic analyses with our recent calculations of Stark-broadened profiles derived from computer simulations.